Sarah clambered into the oversized bed, pulling the covers over herself as she got settled in. The minute she laid back she realised just how tired she actually was. Getting abducted by Alien plants tends to have that effect on people. She had woken up today on that cramped, undersupplied nightmare ship and she was ending it in what could only be described as the lap of luxury, as long as you don’t count all the weird pet stuff. The Affini certainly didn’t seem to be as bad as the Accord made them out to be. No forced labour camps, no grinding people into mulch. The only thing that didn’t sit right with her was the whole ‘pet’ thing. She hadn’t gotten many details about it from Willow, just that she was being set up to become one.She’ll add that to the ever growing list of questions she has. Sarah let out a yawn as she felt drowsiness beginning to clutch at her mind, beckoning her into the depths of sleep and the fact that this was the comfiest bed she had ever been in wasn’t helping. Soon she could no longer resist and drifted off into peaceful sleep.

Sarah awoke with a groan, sleepily batting away vines that prodded at her cheek. Was someone speaking to her? She was far too tired to pay attention as she pulled the covers up to her face and groaned. “5 more minutes.” Just as she was beginning to think she had won the battle for more sleep, nestling herself back into her cosy bed, the covers were ripped away from her, exposing her to the cold air of the room as a shiver ran up her body.

“Come on little one, you’ve slept for long enough. Besides, we have important business to take care of.”

Realising her fight is fruitless, Sarah hauled herself up, staring, bleary eyed at the one who had so rudely gotten her out of bed. “Morning Willow.”

“Good morning dear, Did you sleep well?” 

Sarah hopped out of bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she let out a yawn. “Well it was better than anything I got on the Vengeance, that’s for sure.”  

“Wonderful! Now, I've already taken the liberty of drawing you up a bath and breakfast will be ready when you’re out. We’ve got to be out of the hab in about an hour, so please don’t take too long.” 

Still half asleep Sarah struggled to pay attention to what Willow was saying, stretching wide she looked up to the Affini. “Umm, I think you might be forgetting something.”

“And what would that be dear?”

Sarah raised up her mechanical arms, giving willow a little wave. “I can’t use a bath, not with these anyway.” 

“They aren’t waterproof?”

“Not for that much water anyway, they’d be fine in the rain but fully submerging them like that is a no go.”

Sarah saw Willows foliage bristle for a moment, as if pondering their dilemma. “Well how do you usually wash yourself?”

Sarah blushed a little at the question and looked to the floor. She was well aware her usual method of washing wasn’t the most effective, but it really was the best she could do. “With a damp cloth and some soap usually.”

Sarah felt a vine patting her on the head and when she looked up she saw Willow looking back down at her, a much less wooden smile on her face. “It’s alright dear. Though I’m afraid I can't allow you to go on like that. From what I saw all of the electrical components are inside the limbs themselves. If you remove them you shouldn’t have an issue bathing properly.” 

A look of confusion passed over Sarah’s face. “It’s gonna be pretty hard to wash without my arms Willow.” She says quite matter of factly. 

Looking up to Willow Sarah sees that while her face remains the same as ever, little pink flowers begin to bloom across a few of her vines. “I guess I'll just have to help you won’t I.”    

Sarah felt the heat rising in her cheeks immediately, she had known this plant for all of a day and now she was trying to bathe her?! Part of Sarah's mind wondered if all Affini were so forward or if this one was just special, but far more of her brain was occupied with embarrassment. “W..What?!? No! Absolutely not!” She took a step back from Willow, looking off to the side in an attempt to hide the blush on her face. “Look I can just wash myself i…it’s fine, really.”  

“Alright dear, if you insist, but if every inch of you isn’t sparkling when you come out i won’t be so lenient next time.” A shiver ran down Sarah's spine as those words wormed their way into her mind. Was it just her or was Willow being more…..domineering than yesterday. Either way she had no plans on pushing Willow at this point. Making her way into the absurdly sized bathroom, she found it already steamy and warm as an enticing bathtub of hot water sitting before her. It really was a shame she couldn’t enjoy it, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a proper bath and Willow had gone to all that trouble. For just a moment she felt tempted to accept Willow’s offer, the bath seeming to almost call to her. Quickly though she snapped herself out of it as she began to scrub herself down. She was very careful to make sure she got into all those hard to reach places, which was easier since her joints weren’t limited by the average human range of motion. Once she was finished with her body she moved onto her hair, washing it in the large sink and scrubbing with shampoo. Or at least what she thought was shampoo, given that she couldn't read Affini script she just had to guess. Whatever it was, it seemed to do the trick. Her mind briefly wandered to the thought of Affini putting drugs in the shampoo to trick Terrans into getting all dopey. She quickly pushed that thought to the side, even the Affini wouldn’t do that. After rinsing and drying her hair she stepped out of the bathroom feeling much cleaner than before.

Just as she was about to make her way into the kitchen Sarah stopped herself, something was bothering her, gnawing at the back of her mind. She couldn't help but feel like she was forgetting something………….Oh shit her pills! She rushed off to her bedroom and searched for her pills, yet she quickly discovered they were nowhere to be found, not even in the boxes that all her stuff had been brought to the Hab in. Leaving the bedroom she went in search of Willow, finding her in the kitchen preparing breakfast, waffles by the looks of things. “Ah Sarah, there you are, have a seat, breakfast will be ready in just a moment.” 

After grabbing herself a glass of water, Sarah clambered up onto the overly large chair and took her place at the table. “Hey Willow, do you know where my pills are?” 

“You’ll have to be more specific dear.”

“My HRT pills, I was looking for them earlier but I couldn't find them.”

“Oh yeah, Dex mentioned something about that during your examination, hmmm, if they’re not with your belongings I imagine they got thrown out.” 

Sarah nearly choked on her water when she heard that, letting out a series of coughs and splutters before being able to speak. “What do you mean thrown out!?! Why would you throw out my pills!?!” upon hearing the distress in her voice Willow immediately came to Sarah’s side, placing a hand on her shoulder. 

“Hey, Sarah it’s ok, they probably got thrown out because you can get much more effective treatments in the compact. I can even compile you some of the generic stuff right now, though you should talk to Dex about it when we go for your follow up.”  

“What do you mean generic stuff, don’t you need like, all my blood work and stuff?”

Sarah began to pout a little as Willow let out a giggle, clearly she had said something funny, though she wasn’t sure what. “Sarah dear, medicine in the compact is far more advanced than anything the accord could produce.” Willow glided over to the compiler and soon returned with a bottle of pills. “These should be suitable for now, just take one a day. But like I said, if you want the proper stuff you’ll need to talk about it with Dex.” 

Sarah looked suspiciously at the bottle. Was it really that easy? Surely not, there must be some sort of catch. “These aren’t going to mess with my head or anything are they.”

“No dear, they shouldn’t have any side effects for that matter.”

“So they won't turn me into one of those dopey pets we saw the other day.”

“No, they won’t have any effects on your mental capacity.”

Sarah still eyed the bottle with some suspicion, Willow hadn’t lied to her before and it’s not like she had to trick her, if the Affini wanted to drug her out of her mind, she easily could, but she still wasn’t sure. Reluctantly she took out a pill and swallowed it with some water. Well, she didn’t feel any different, no sudden urge to kiss Willow's feet or wear a collar, maybe this was the real deal.

“See, nothing to worry about.” Willow then placed a large stack of Waffles down in front of Sarah. “Eat up quick, we've got to leave soon.”

The stack of Waffles before was a glorious sight to behold, piled high with all the trimmings. She couldn’t even dream of a breakfast like this, not on the vengeance or even back home. Eagerly she dug in. “Sho why do we gotta be out of the hab today.” Sarah asked while stuffing her face with Waffles. 

“Well, there are two reasons really. The first is that I've asked Habitation management to come and do some remodelling to make this place a bit more suitable for you.” 

“And the second?”

Willow's leaves pulled in on themselves, her form shrinking a little. “The second is that the captain has asked me to bring you to visit her and I thought I’d feed two horses with one stone.”

Once again Sarah nearly choked, though this time it was because of the butchered expression. “Two birds, feed two birds with one stone.” she said after recovering. 

“What? That’s ridiculous, you can’t feed birds with stones.”

“Look, that's just the saying, I don't know why it’s like that.” 

“You Terrans really are a strange people, anyway, we’ve got about 15 minutes before we have to go. The captain is very excited to meet you.” 

“What does the Captain want with me?”

Willow’s foliage rustled, her eyes flashing with a faint blue colour. “Lillian and I are…….close friends, she was the one who assigned you to me in the first place.”

Oh, Sarah knew That look, didn't matter the era or even the species, Sarah knew That look only meant one thing. “So she’s your Ex, got it.”

The moment the words left her mouth hundreds of little pink flowers bloomed all over Willow's body as every vine wriggled and shook. “W..What?!?! No it’s nothing like that!?!” Sarah struggled to hold back her giggle, clearly there was something going on between those two, even if Willow wouldn’t admit it. “Lillian is…..something of a mentor to me, I’ve known her since my first bloom. She’s very important to me.” Willow was staring off into the distance now, her eyes unfocused as if lost in some distant memory. Hmm, maybe this was a subject for another day.

“First Bloom? Is that like a rank or something?”

Sarah’s voice seems to bring Willow back to reality as her focus returned to the girl. “Hmm? Oh, no dear, nothing like that. See Affini don’t die like other species, instead every 300 years we sort of regenerate ourselves, we call it reblooming and we use these bloom cycles to measure our age.”

These Affini really were ridiculous, every day it felt like she learned some new  impossible thing about them. First it was that they can basically make anything out of thin air and now she was finding out they were immortal. Honestly these plants were gonna be the death of her. “Wait, so you said you were in your third bloom, so that would make you at least 600 years old?”

“Something like that, I'm about halfway through my third bloom so it’s probably closer to 700 of your years.”

“700 years?! You’re ancient!”

“Oh not at all dear, I’m actually quite young by my peoples standards. Captain Lilian for example is in her 18th bloom and there are Affini in the core worlds with bloom counts well into the hundreds.”

Maybe after she spends more time in the compact these sorts of things won't shock her, but for now though she was stunned into silence. No wonder all these plants were so weird, you don’t live for hundreds of years without picking up a few quirks. 

Eventually Sarah just shook her head and went back to eating, doing her best to not think about what she had just heard. After finishing up Willow grabbed the plate and decompiled it, the pair both getting up from the table, making their way towards the Hab entrance. “Sarah dear.”

“Yeah?”

“I just wanted to say, the Captain can be quite…..intense, if any of it gets too much for you just let me know and we can leave, alright?”

Sarah looked up at Willow, her eyes had that same unfocused look as before. “Yeah sure, and umm, same to you, you know?” 

Willow let out a soft, slightly sad giggle “Alright dear, come on, we’re gonna be late.” 

Willow extended her arm and offered a hand to Sarah and with a slight shake of the head and a little sigh Sarah took Willow's hand in hers, stepping out of the Hab as the two began their day in earnest.